The present invention relates to armor methodologies that implement ceramic material, more particularly to armor methodologies that implement discrete ceramic elements in combination with non-ceramic material.
Current military armor applications include land vehicles, air vehicles (e.g., aircraft and rotorcraft), stationary structures, and personnel. Other applications of armor systems are less common but may become more prevalent in the future, including marine vehicles (e.g., ships), unmanned air vehicles, unmanned marine vehicles, and missiles. Generally, the weight of an armor system is most critical for personnel/personal (e.g., helmet or body) armor.
Various armor constructions and configurations have been disclosed involving utilization of ceramic material. Shih et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,532,857 B1 issued 18 Mar. 2003 entitled “Ceramic Array Armor,” incorporated herein by reference, disclose an armor system that includes an elastomeric matrix material and, encapsulated therein, plural ceramic tiles arrayed along a common surface and spaced apart from one another. See also the following U.S. patents, each of which is incorporated herein by reference: deWitt, U.S. Pat. No. 7,067,031 B2, issued 27 Jun. 2006, entitled “Process for Making A Ceramic Armor Plate”; Cohen, U.S. Pat. No. 6,860,186 B2, issued 1 Mar. 2005, entitled “Ceramic Bodies and Ballistic Armor Incorporating the Same”; Mohr et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,792,843 B2, issued 21 Sep. 2004, entitled “Armor-Plating Composite”; Ghiorse et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,601,497 B2, issued 5 Aug. 2003, entitled “Armor with In-Plane Confinement of Ceramic Tiles”; Lyons, U.S. Pat. No. 6,332,390 B1, issued 25 Dec. 2001, entitled “Ceramic Tile Armor with Enhanced Joint and Edge Protection”; Lyons et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,655 B1, issued 3 Jul. 2001, entitled “Lightweight Armor with a Durable Spall Cover”; Lyons, U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,789, issued 4 Jan. 2000, entitled “Ceramic Tile Armor with Enhanced Joint and Edge Protection.”
Certain ceramic materials are known in the art to be suitable for use in armor applications. These conventional armor ceramics—which include aluminum oxide (commonly called “alumina”), silicon carbide, boron carbide, and titanium carbide—have been developed over the last thirty years or so, and represent the current state of the art. These conventional pure ceramic materials have been relied upon in conventional practice of armor systems, for instance for protection against impact by a projectile such as a ballistic body (e.g., small arms fire) or an explosive fragment (e.g., shrapnel from a bomb blast).
Although conventional ceramic armor materials often perform satisfactorily, they (and therefore armor systems implementing them) tend to be expensive to produce. The need exists in the armor-related arts for materials and systems affording lower production costs and higher production capacities.